Almost Lover
by GleeBrittana
Summary: You sang me Spanish lullabies, the sweetest sadness in your eyes.


**I've been trying to get back in the whole writing mood because I've been seriously lacking around here so I've been letting people prompt/challenge me. A friend asked me to write Santina, any Santina, and this happened.**

**Inspired by the song _Almost Lover _by A Fine Frenzy. It's a sad but amazing song and you should all listen to it.**

* * *

It hurts.

It feels like someone punched right through her chest. Just like that. And left a gaping hole.

She wants it to stop.

She wants to cover it up because the opening allows coldness to come in.

The cold feeling is probably the worst.

She doesn't like being cold.

But it hurts.

And she guesses that it's all part of heartbreak and that she should've expected it. She didn't, because she didn't even know she'd allowed herself to feel for her, to _fall _for her.

She should've never let Santana come into her life. She knew she'd end up hurt.

She can't blame anyone but herself.

And that's the one thing that makes her feel something next to the crumpling pain of heartbreak: anger. She's angry at herself for allowing this to happen.

Tina thought it would be a summer like no other. It was the one between junior and senior year and she _knew _she should expect more than playing Angry Birds all summer while watching her dozen cousins and maybe the devil spawn from the neighbors, but she didn't, because if she just stayed real for a moment she knew she wouldn't do anything at all during the summer.

She would go mentor in Asian camp again if it weren't for Mike being there too, and with their break-up fresh on the mind she'd rather not.

So she'd spend the year's hottest weeks in Lima, Ohio and that would be that.

There were some other gleeks around for the summer. She'd already made plans with Kurt, Mercedes and Rachel to go for a karaoke night someday and she and Artie would probably catch movies together weekly. She also knew that others wouldn't be staying around. Puck was already heading over to California, Quinn would spend her summer backpacking through Europe with Joe and Brittany was going to spend her entire summer back in the Netherlands with her family.

She should've known Santana would get bored without her best friends around, but she hadn't expected to be on top of the list of the people the other girl wanted to spend time with.

The phone call had taken her by surprise.

They hadn't spent time together since the two afternoons in a row at Tina's house, in the piano room, to write Trouty Mouth. She'd seen a side of Santana that had pleasantly surprised her. It had been fun to watch her on top of her piano, kicking her feet in the air and her long raven hair sprawled out around her instead of in the usual ponytail. They'd hit it off surprisingly well.

After performing the song it felt like those days had never happened though, and Santana ignored Tina all over again.

Tina was okay with it. Sort of sad that their almost magical moments had to go to waste, but she'd live. She had other friends, ones that didn't mind continuing their dorky relationship from behind the scenes even when they were on stage.

But every time she saw Santana since, she just couldn't shake the memories.

And now that same girl was asking her to come over to her house and be in her pool with her and the thoughts in her head stumbled over each other to be the first one acknowledged and before she even processed the question she'd responded with a louder than necessary "yes!" that made Santana chuckle in this 'I know you would' ft. 'you're cute' way that made Tina question why Santana didn't laugh more often.

It was fun. _A lot of fun_. Tina couldn't remember a time she'd laughed as much as she had. Santana's sense of humor was very much like her own; sarcastic, clever, based on things she knew and cared about. Tina caught glimpses of the real Santana again and she liked what she saw.

Slowly, Tina because Santana's new Quinn.

They would be on the phone with each other for hours, talking about everything and nothing in particular, while doing things. Tina quickly learned that calling + doing her nails ended in disaster, but calling + watching things on television was perfection. They'd even tune in on the same channels and deliver each other lines of live commentary.

And then one day Santana decided that calling while doing stuff was too expensive and they could just as well _actually _be around each other to do things, and so reality tv nights were born.

Tina doesn't remember when exactly spending one night a week together turned into spending every day together, or when it started to automatically mean sleepovers for nights on end, but she hadn't mind in the least when it was happening.

Eventually Tina couldn't deny anymore that though being Santana's new Quinn was amazing, she wanted to be more than that. She wanted to be Santana's new Brittany. She wanted her heart, she wanted to go on dates with her and kiss her and get her silly gifts and all that stuff.

It was the first girl she'd ever had feelings for, but how could she not? Santana was intelligent and beautiful and funny and she seemed to actually care and _God_. Tina had slowly peeled off layers and layers of Santana's defensive mechanics and she'd found a pearl worth treasuring.

Somewhere halfway their summer spent together she started feeling differently around Santana and she only noticed when it was too late to stop herself from falling.

She knew she'd end up hurt if she kept all of it to herself, but she couldn't tell her. Not when Santana was probably awaiting Brittany's return.

They pretended like nothing was wrong. At least, Tina did. She pretended like her feelings for Santana weren't growing bigger every day. She pretended like the end of summer wasn't getting closer and closer. She pretended Santana wouldn't have to leave in the fall and be miles away from Lima. She pretended like she wouldn't get her heart shattered soon.

Only sometimes she believed her own acting.

The last weeks were fun but hard and really, Brittany returning and taking Santana away from her was something she'd been expecting and _it shouldn't hurt as much as it does_.

Tina just feels miserable. She's curled up in bed and awaiting Kurt's arrival. He texted her and she replied vaguely, and Kurt being Kurt picked up on vibes over a damn mobile connection and promised her ice cream and a fashionably dressed shoulder to cry on.

She wants to be alone but knows he means well and maybe having someone around her that isn't Santana for a change will cheer her up.

The first tears fall and she's sort of relieved, but only because she finally lets go and she has a split second of peace, where she thinks 'it's okay that I'm sad, I know I am, I let myself cry and now I can heal', and then the next moment she's clutching her pillow to her stomach and trying to remember why anyone would ever want to cry ever because this feels even worse. Every tear that drops sends a knife straight through her spine, the tip prodding in her heart.

It's horrible.

There's a knock on her front door and she's a mess, but she knows that if anyone's most likely not to judge her for the make-up spread over her entire face it's Kurt, so she gets up and drags herself down the stairs. It feels like she's up to the knees in mud, and moving is difficult.

She hopes she'll get over herself faster than she knows she will.

"You better have brought ch-" Her voice dies in her throat the moment she sees the person on the door step. It's Santana.

It dawns on her a moment later that Santana's sniffling and the rim around her eyes is red, and her heart aches softly. Even when she's hurting herself, more than she ever has, seeing Santana in this state makes her push it all aside to put her on the first place.

But when she tries to pull her in a hug, something they've been doing a lot during the summer, Santana stops her.

"You can't touch me because it's unfair," she says and her voice sounds raspy in all the right ways and Tina just nods. There's no such thing as trying to convince Santana of something. "It's unfair because you make my skin crawl and your touches are fire and ice at the same time."

"What d-"

"No, ssh." Santana picks at the sleeve of her jacket, and looking down at it, she's never seemed more vulnerable than Tina has ever seen her be. "If it weren't for Brittany being around the corner, I wouldn't be doing this. She's a bitch for making me do this, she really is. But she means well."

Tina doesn't understand anything that's going on but she's trembling a little and the tension between them feels heavy against her shoulders.

"I've had feelings for you since Trouty Mouth," she says and Tina's head spins.

"And the day I called you to come swim in my pool was the day I broke up with Brittany because I had fallen out of love with her and in love with you," she says and Tina feels her knees buckle.

"I've been grabbing every chance I could get to spend time with you and I've wanted to tell you so many times but I couldn't. I'm doing it now because maybe this is my last chance, and I don't want to spend my life asking the 'what if' questions. Brittany's making me do this because she knew that before me. And if she had returned earlier, she would've made me do it earlier but-"

Tina makes her shut up because she's sure she can't take more of her words.

The kiss is definitely not the best the both of them have ever had, but it's perfect; it's soft and gentle, but hints to the deep passion they have boiling within them for the body they're trying to pull impossibly close. Tina is shaking but so is Santana and she feels tears on her cheeks of which she's not sure who they belong to but all of it doesn't matter because she wraps her arms around Santana and feels whole.

"Thank you," Tina whispers and looks directly at Santana, the look in the brown orbs she finds shaking her to the very soul. It's intense and it shows such raw feelings, but so real.

"I know I'm leaving for college soon but I love you, Tina, and I want to be your girlfriend. You have my heart, you catch my breath, each bone in my body aches for you and all my muscles surge with you. You have so much more than my heart, you have everything it keeps alive and I need to love you or I think all of it is going to stop."

Tina smiles and presses a kiss to the corner of Santana's mouth, catching the feeling of her lips and a fallen tear. "You've always been the more dramatic one of the two of us."

"And that's why I am Meredith and you're Christina but we're each other's person and that's all that matters." She giggles, reaching up to wipe at her eyes and Tina's heart swells, all Santana's words healing the wounds that have been forming for weeks now.

"I would offer you my snuggie while I heat up a pizza for you but my girlfriend is a kleptomaniac and stole it three weeks ago," Tina says, pulling Santana into the house.

The twinkle her words cause to appear in Santana's teary brown eyes is something Tina won't ever get used to.


End file.
